It’s not safe to get in the water
By KEN MIDKIFF
Published Friday, February 6, 2009
(http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/feb/06/its-not-safe-to-get-in-the-water/)

It seems as though “non-support of aquatic habitat” is not the only problem Hinkson Creek has. Recently, because of a lowering of the amount of bacteria that the Environmental Protection Agency will allow, Hinkson is now impaired for “non-support of recreation in and on the water.” This impairment is for the full in-city stretch of Hinkson Creek to its confluence with Perche Creek, mostly downstream of Interstate 70. The full length that is impaired is 18 miles.

What the presence of that bacteria means in everyday terms is that the water in Hinkson Creek is harmful to human health. If you take a dip — whether by intent or by accident — you run the risk of getting very sick with “gastrointestinal distress”: vomiting and diarrhea. Also, any scratches, lacerations or sores might become infected.

Although the standard of 206 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters (expressed as 206 CFU/100 mil) of water is a bit obtuse — and documentable only by a lab analysis — it has real meaning in real life. The original level decided upon by the Clean Water Commission was 508 CFU/100 mil, and the EPA, in a letter to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said there was no standard for that level but there was one for 206.

Although Hinkson Creek was deemed “non-impaired” at the 508 level, it was woefully short of meeting the 206 level and thereby deemed impaired for whole-body contact, Recreation Type B. Recreation B, by the way, includes boating, wading and other activities where contact is incidental and unintentional.

The disease-causing organism that is of concern and that was lowered from 508 CFU/100 mi to 206 is E. coli, and it matters not to that organism whether you intended to take a dip or fell in. What matters is that you have come into contact with the contaminated water and maybe swallowed a bit of it. The federal Clean Water Act doesn’t take intent into account at all. The goal of the Clean Water Act is that waters of the United States (of which Hinkson Creek is one) should support “recreation in and on the water.”

Our Clean Water Commission is unfortunately more interested in finding ways to avoid compliance with the clear letter of the law and protecting polluters than it is in full compliance with the law and protecting citizens who engage in water recreation. Were it not for the EPA, Hinkson Creek would on paper meet its “designated and beneficial use” of whole-body contact and present an unacceptable risk of causing illness or infection in those who come into contact with the water.

There is one little catch. The Clean Water Act says the waters of the United States should support “recreation in and on the water” where attainable. What that “where attainable” means is that if the body of water can’t attain that use, then those who dump stuff into it don’t need to kill or remove bacteria. The EPA and the Missouri Clean Water Commission have established criteria for what is tagged a “use attainability analysis,” and the primary one is that if the water has been used for whole-body contact at any time since 1975, then the use cannot be removed. Since, obviously, Hinkson Creek has been used for various types of water recreation as recently as last summer, the designation of whole-body contact is appropriate and cannot be removed.

But where are the bacteria coming from? DNR and the EPA are silent on that point. The usual sources of bacteria are leaking septic tanks, sewage treatment plants and confined animal feeding operations. Since there are, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, no CAFOs in the Hinkson Creek watershed, that leaves faulty septic tanks and sewage treatment plants as the targets. No doubt these will be ferreted out in the next few years and the owners or operators will be ordered to fix whatever problems exist. Until then, don’t take a dip in Hinkson Creek.